Tales of Revolutionary times, including the causes of the American Revolution, the daring exploits of those defending liberty, the early battles, the struggles of the army, and the heroes who led the colonists to victory. Ages 8-12

169 pages

$9.95

WASHINGTON AND HIS ARMY

[65] NOW that the war had really begun, events followed upon
each other thick and fast. Before the summer was over,
every colony, from New Hampshire to Georgia, was up in
arms.

Washington had gathered his army outside of Boston, and
there he held General Gage imprisoned in the city.
Washington had now several good generals to help him,
one of whom, called “Old Put,” was famed far and wide
for his pluck. In another chapter you will read about
Old Put’s wolf hunt—a story you must know; for
although it is not exactly a story of the Revolution,
still it does no harm to know any story of the heroes
of the Revolution that tells of the daring courage of
these men.

But we were speaking of Washington’s army. In a
“History of Our Country,” written by Abby Sage
Richardson, is the following excellent description of
the appearance of the Colonial army.

“You can form no idea what a task lay before Washington
and his generals. Here was a great body of men hurried
into the field from farms and workshops, with no more
idea of military drill than a herd of sheep, with
miserable old muskets, scanty supply of powder and
balls, and no money to buy any. Then the dress of this
provincial army was enough to excite the laugh which
the British soldiers raised
[66] at them. Some of them were dressed in the long-tailed
linsey-woolsey coats, and linsey-woolsey breeches,
which had been spun and woven in farm-house kitchens;
some wore smock frocks like a butcher, also made of
homespun; some wore suits of British broadcloth, so
long used for Sunday clothes that they had grown rather
the worse for wear; and every variety of dress and
fashion figured in these motley ranks.

“When General Washington rode grandly out on horseback,
dressed in his fine blue broadcloth coat, with buff
colored facings, buff waistcoat and breeches, a hat
with black cockade, and a sword in an elegantly
embroidered
[66] sword-belt, I think his heart must have sunk within him
as he looked on his tatterdemalion army, and then
glanced over towards Boston, and thought of the British
soldiers, gorgeous in their elegant new uniforms,
trained to march up to the cannon’s mouth like a solid
wall in motion.”

BRITISH SOLDIERS

But for all that Washington knew that his army was
brave, and in dead earnest, for were they not fighting
for their own homes, their own mothers and wives and
children?

Two brothers in Washington’s army, to show what skilful
marksmen they were, took a board only five inches wide
and seven inches long, fastened a piece of white paper
the size of a dollar upon it in the middle, and then
shot at it at a distance of sixty yards.

Eight bullets they fired; and every one of them went
straight through the white paper. When the lookers on
wondered at them, they said, “There are fifty more men
in our company who can do just as well.” They then
offered to shoot apples off each other’s heads, as
William Tell is said to have done long, long ago; but
their commander said they had shown their comrades that
they could, beyond a doubt, send a bullet straight
through the heart of a British soldier, and that now
they had better save their powder till a British
soldier appeared.

And so you see, that, although these men were so oddly
dressed, and although they knew so little of military
training, yet they had clear heads and straight eyes,
and, above all, dauntless courage.

Hundreds of additional titles available for
online reading when you join Gateway to the Classics